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Hours after a new lobbying firm aimed at national and international clients announced that she was working in partnership with a former national security advisor
Mike Flynn,
Mr. Flynn stated that the agreement had been canceled as a result of a "misunderstanding" between participants of Stonington Global LLC.
"General Flynn did not join Stonington and did not personally issue public statement," Robert Flynn's lawyers Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony said in a statement Tuesday. "He knew that a statement was being drafted, but he had not intended it to be published yet."
Flynn expects to be convicted for lying to federal investigators. His guilty plea in December arises from a special advocate
Robert Mueller & # 39; s
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. He agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and incurs up to six months in prison.
Nick Muzin and
Joey Allaham
Tuesday told the Wall Street Journal that they had started their business with Mr. Flynn. They also launched Tuesday a website and promotional video of Stonington.
"We can not comment on General Flynn's considerations about the timing of the announcement, but we believe in his patriotism and his long history of service to our country." Allaham said after Flynn's lawyers issued their statement. "We can not wait to work together."
Flynn was back in court Tuesday for the first time since pleading guilty as a US District Judge.
Emmet Sullivan
asked for an update on where the legal teams stand on his conviction. The judge has not set a date for sentencing. He should receive an update from Mr. Flynn's attorneys and lawyers by August 24.
Stonington Global will provide consulting and lobbying services to US and foreign clients, said MM. Muzin and Allaham in a statement. The firm will also "help private investors and sovereign wealth funds to develop and implement investment strategies". Mr. Flynn was to serve as Director of Global Strategy
The firm has not announced any clients. Muzin and Allaham have already worked together to help a failed political candidate in Albania and for a campaign to influence the Persian Gulf nation in Qatar, according to foreign lobbying records. The pair finished work with Qatar last month, after helping his royal family connect with US Jewish leaders and the president's associates.
Donald Trump
According to interviews with MM. Muzin and Allaham and foreign lobbying reports filed with the Department of Justice, neither of the two men knew Mr. Flynn, but Mr. Allaham contacted him to join the company because that "her experience speaks of herself."
"I told her that your life should not stop," said Mr. Allaham. "He has experience all over the world.It can do a lot for us.We are very lucky to have a man like that."
MM. Muzin and Allaham declined to comment on Mr. Flynn's legal problems, but stated that they were confident that he would play a valuable and ethical role in their business.
A retired Lieutenant General of the Army, Mr. Flynn was an intelligence officer who took over the Pentagon's military intelligence operation. As Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under the presidency of the time
Barack Obama,
he scrambled with his superiors while he was pushing for a harder line on the US approach to Afghanistan and the evolving threat of al Qaeda. He was forced to early retirement in 2014 and started working with
. Trump on the trial of the campaign
After his election, Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Flynn a national security advisor. He served in the job only 23 days before being evicted by Mr. Trump, who said that Mr. Flynn had lied to the Vice President
Mike Pence
on the topics he discussed with the Moscow ambassador a month before the inauguration. Mr Flynn assured Mr Pence that he had not discussed the Obama administration 's sanctions against Russia for being ingested in the presidential election.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying about these conversations during interviews with federal investigators. Prosecutors said his contacts with Russian officials were coordinated with senior members of the president's transitional team. Mr Flynn "falsely declared" to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he had not asked the Russian ambassador to refrain from a response to the sanctions, according to the prosecutors.
The special advocate is conducting an investigation into Russia's efforts in the election and the potential links between these efforts and the Trump campaign, which Russia and Mr Trump have denied.
As part of the guilty plea, Mr. Flynn also admitted to having worked as an unregistered agent for Turkey in the weeks leading up to the 2016 US elections. At the time, his Flynn Intel group s & # 39; Is launched in a project to discredit the Turkish religious Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania. Representatives of the Turkish government have asked the United States to extradite him so that he can face terrorism charges in Turkey.
-Del Quentin Wilber and Aruna Viswanatha contributed to this article.
Writing to Julie Bykowicz at [email protected]
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